Rooms and houses
by apathyinreverie
Summary: "Nice to meet you, Dr. House. My sister has been talking about you. Thank you for taking care of her when I wasn't here to do so." He held back the smirk, as he heard his team choke behind him at the words. "Well, it certainly is a surprise. But what can you do? Young folks these days…" AU after 03x12. Will probably be slash.
A/N: I don't own anything. This takes place soon after 03x12 and I will change around most of what happens afterwards. The girl from 03x12 is going to stay around and there will be some OCs. There definitely will be some OOC parts.

Warnings: Mentions of rape (the case in 03x12) and abortion. This will probably be slash eventually. Don't like, don't read.

 **Rooms and houses**

A smug look passed his face as he put his car in park on his new/old parking spot. There had been no conquest in winning it back. Cuddy was just too easy to manipulate and her actions simple to anticipate. Come to think of it, that could be said for pretty much everyone he had ever met. That in itself was kind of sad. Playing his games with the common folk seemed almost necessary in order for him to not die of boredom. Well, also making people cry due to their idiocy and failings had its own appeal to be honest.

He sighed, considering just turning around and going back home. He had no interest in meeting and greeting the idiots hiding in the hospital at this moment, just waiting for him to walk through the doors. Even the thought of a difficult case, to solve another puzzle, if one could call it that at all, did not appeal to him today the same way it usually did. He was exhausted, so tired. It had been a struggle in the past weeks to not show the utter boredom he continually seemed to be hunted by.

The situation with Wilson and Cuddy, with his team, the betrayal he felt due to their actions or in some cases non-action... He had not even suspected at first, but when he had discovered, that wheelchair-guy had actually been cured, that he had been right, and that no one, no one had told him. They had kept it under wraps, between them, to teach him a lesson, to humble him, even though he had been right, his diagnosis had been right and it had cured the man.

He had only found out by accident, an article on the 'miracle cure' in a local paper featured on the internet and the cover image... At that point it had been a while since he had actually slept decently. Failing in that case had damaged something, mangled his self-assurance that even though he was apparently a failure in most other aspects, he was unquestionably the best in his field. When he had seen the cover picture of the article, and saw not-anymore-wheelchair-guy, smiling, arms wrapped around his family, something in him had broken. Because he realized that the two people that were closest to him had done this knowing what it would mean to him regarding the most treasured aspect of his self, his medicine. He still had not confronted them and he didn't think he would. Even if they would claim to accept his blame, in all their self-righteousness they would not actually see their fault, the break they had rendered.

The wound of this betrayal was still raw and the longer he let it fester the less he was able to consider the both of them even remotely acceptable as friends, or even acquaintances. Though they apparently had noticed recently, that something in his interactions with them had changed, they did not seem to even consider any fault of their own or that he might have found out about this specific betrayal. If he was honest he wanted to keep it that way. He was good at acting, good at acting as though there was nothing wrong, as though he was intentionally making them think something was wrong as part of another bigger game he was playing.

The pain in his leg, though not torturous, had increased steadily over the past months and was making concentrating annoyingly hard in the past weeks. Even more, his patience, the little bit he actually had that was not generally used up by other people's idiocy was wearing thin.

And then, the rape case – the nice girl that was so damn nice and decent and honest she deserved life to give her cookies and rainbows and some such nonsense – brought down by some shithead. It was something that life had taught him early on, life was a rollercoaster of shit moments, some more and some less shitty. But this girl… He wasn't even sure why the girl's situation was such an ongoing topic for him, why he got stuck on this case that wasn't even what he would normally call a case at all and just an example of why he hated clinic duty and did everything he could to avoid it. But somehow, he got stuck on this case, not only because her reaction forced him to, but also –

For some reason he got stuck on this, his mind had been circling around the girl even after she had left the hospital, which only ever happened if he had a case that was one of the spectacular puzzles to solve. Not to give the wrong impression, he felt no attraction to the girl whatsoever, that wasn't the reason his mind seemed to be stuck on her and her situation. And that was the other thing, somehow he had actually cared, not about the dilemma of rape, abortion, life and believes they had been discussing. But somehow he had cared about her situation, wanted to give some kind, any kind of support for her to lean on while she floundered in her complete helplessness. In the end she had terminated the baby, and he was glad that she had made this decision. She had made it possible for herself to let go of this horrible situation, to move on. Because in his eyes the real problem with keeping the child would have been that she would never be able to truly move on from the trauma. Even giving up the child for adoption afterwards would have meant that she not only had to work through the memories of the trauma itself, but rather than one night, one horrible event she would have had to work through the months of pregnancy, the birth, the after care, the changes in her body that would not simply go away just because the child would not be in her life, the wondering, the question of how the child was doing for the rest of her life. The girl had seemed like that kind of person, to worry about the child just because she knew of its existence. So, yeah, he was glad that she had chosen as she had.

And there he went again, sitting in the hospital parking lot, for… half an hour again ruminating on this one case and even more than that considering the aftermath of the decisions. He did not ever care about the patients that he treated after he had solved the puzzle, after he had pulled off yet another amazing diagnosis and cure. Cuddy and Wilson had done an about face shortly after the case, acting as though he had done something terrible, something unspeakable, because the girl had not initially intended to terminate. There had been some not so subtle comments, citing the girl's decision to not return for the psychological treatment to their hospital. Not to mention the nearly badgering commentary from his own team as soon as they heard about the case from the hospital grape vine. No one considered that she might not be able to afford the admittedly horrendous rates of their hospital's departments, which might have been the reason why she had come to the free clinic initially. Idiots.

When they had talked after she had left the hospital, she had actually told him some details of the night she was raped. And damn did he want to kill the piece of shit that had done this to her. She had also mentioned visiting her brother and he was glad she had somewhere in her life to flee to, to let go, to work through her situation and her decisions. He slumped slightly on his bike and specifically did not consider his own lack of anyone who would catch him from time to time. He was tired.

"Nothing for it." He mumbled and heaved himself off the bike, grabbed his cane and made for the hospital. Luckily, he did not run into anyone intending to stop him on his way to his office. They had just finished the case of the pain in the ass, pain-free girl and dammit he needed a vacation if the team did not come up with a decent, or rather spectacular case soon.


End file.
